Why Thatcher was the 'Iron Lady'

By Tom Rogan, Special to CNN

Updated 10:19 AM ET, Tue April 9, 2013

Photos: Thatcher through the years36 photos

Margaret Thatcher through the years – Margaret Thatcher, the first woman to become British prime minister, has died at 87 after a stroke, a spokeswoman said Monday, April 8. Known as the "Iron Lady," Thatcher, as Conservative Party leader, was prime minister from 1979 to 1990. Here she visits British Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street in London in June 2010.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher with her parents and sister Muriel in 1945. Thatcher, born Margaret Hilda Roberts in 1925, studied chemistry at Oxford University and worked as a research chemist before becoming a barrister in 1954.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Conservative Party candidate Margaret Roberts, the youngest candidate for any party in the 1950 general election, works in a laboratory where she was a research chemist.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – The Conservative Party candidate for Dartford in Kent, England, meets some potential constituents in January 1950.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher chats with a police officer outside the House of Commons, where she took a seat as a member of Parliament for Finchley in October 1959.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher addresses a Conservative Party conference in October 1967.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher in 1970. Within five years, she would become leader of the Conservatives.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Prime Minister Edward Heath with 13 of 15 newly elected Conservative women members of Parliament outside the House of Commons in June 1970. Thatcher became secretary of state for education and science under Heath.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher plays the piano for her husband, Denis, and their twins, Mark and Carol, then 17, in September 1970.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher takes over from Edward Heath as leader of the Conservative Party in 1975.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher addresses Conservatives at the start of the 1979 election campaign. William Whitelaw, at her right, later became home secretary and deputy prime minister under Thatcher.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher, becoming the first female prime minister of a European country, stands with her husband, Denis, outside 10 Downing Street in May 1979 after her party's success in the general election.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher with her new Cabinet in June 1979.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and Thatcher at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in September 1982. They were holding meetings leading up to the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the future of Hong Kong in 1984.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher meets personnel aboard the HMS Antrim during her trip to the Falkand Islands in January 1983. The United Kingdom fought a short war with Argentina over the Falklands in 1982, responding with force when Buenos Aires laid claim to the islands.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher and her husband, Denis, left, visit a school in the Falkland Islands in 1983.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher secures her second term of office in June 1983. She won a landslide re-election on the heels of the Falklands victory, with her Conservative Party taking a majority of seats in Parliament with 42% of the vote.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan share a joke in London in June 1984. The British politician enjoyed a close working relationship with Reagan, with whom she shared similar conservative views.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher addresses a Conservative Party conference in Brighton, England, following an IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel, where many delegates were staying, in October 1984.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher addresses the Conservative Party in May 1985.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher receives Spain's King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia at 10 Downing Street in April 1986.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the start of talks at the Kremlin in Moscow in March 1987.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher and her husband, Denis, wave to the crowd at a London polling station in June 1987. She was re-elected to another term as prime minister that year with a slightly reduced majority.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher dances with Reagan in November 1988 following a state dinner given in her honor at the White House.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher greets Nelson Mandela on the steps of 10 Downing Street in July 1990. The anti-apartheid activist and future South African president had been freed that year after more than 25 years as political prisoner.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher, flanked by her husband Denis, addresses the press for the last time at 10 Downing Street before her resignation as prime minister in November 1990 after an internal leadership struggle among Conservatives.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – The former prime minister chats with President George H.W. Bush in March 1991 in the White House Oval Office before receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The award is the highest civilian honor bestowed in the United States.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher, with her son, Mark, and her daughter, Carol, watches the coffin of her husband, Denis, during his funeral in July 2003 in London. Denis Thatcher died at age 88.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher touches the flag-draped coffin of Reagan as he lies in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in June 2004. In a prerecorded video at his funeral, she called Reagan "a great president, a great American and a great man." "And I have lost a dear friend," she said.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher, from left, Cherie Blair, Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair attend a church service at Pangbourne College in June 2007 to mark the 25th anniversary of victory in the Falklands War.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – An usher helps Thatcher, now a baroness, to her seat during the state opening of Parliament in November 2009.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – The ex-prime minister helps unveil a portrait of herself at the opening of the Margaret Thatcher Infirmary at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London in March 2009.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Pope Benedict XVI greets Thatcher in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican in May 2009.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher attends the House of Lords during the state opening of Parliament in May 2010.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher waves from the door of her London home after a hospital stay to operate on a broken arm in June 2009. She had a pin placed in her shoulder after suffering a fall.

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Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher waves to journalists from her London home after another hospital visit -- this time with a bout of flu -- in November 2010.

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Story highlights

Tom Rogan: Margaret Thatcher was a close ally of U.S. and helped end the Cold War

Rogan: She stood against terrorism and stood up for Britain, won the Falklands War

Rogan: Privatization, deregulation and curbing unions revived the British economy

You always knew where she stood and she changed world for the better, he says

Margaret Thatcher, one of the seminal political figures of the 20th century, will be remembered for her unswerving belief in the virtues of free market capitalism and the vices of socialism, and for her role in the downfall of communism.

People might wonder why Thatcher evokes such positive emotion from young conservatives, such as me, who were children during her heyday. The answer is simple. In our era of politics in which spin seems to take precedence to substance, Margaret Thatcher was an icon for what politics should be about -- courage, spirit and the determination to change things for the better.

In pursuit of the defeat of what she saw as socialist totalitarianism, she made a close alliance with U.S. President Ronald Reagan and built a relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, while still standing firm in opposition to the Soviet empire. Without question, she was one of America's closest and most important friends and was instrumental in winning the Cold War for the West.

She refused to be bowed by terrorism and stood against it in all its forms. After the Irish Republican Army attempted to assassinate her and her Cabinet at the 1984 Conservative Convention in Brighton, narrowly missing Thatcher but killing five people, she insisted on continuing the conference the next day.

Tom Rogan

"The fact that we are gathered here now, shocked, but composed and determined, is a sign not only that this attack has failed, but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail." Her courage brought moral clarity in highlighting the atrocity of terrorism as a means of political activity.

Her resolve to stand against any threat to British interests was clear in the Falklands War. After the invasion of British territory by Argentine military forces, Thatcher said it would not stand. Fully knowing the real prospect of defeat, Thatcher ordered a British military task force to re-take the islands. They did.

Along with foreign policy successes, Thatcher, known as "The Iron Lady," scored domestically.

Facing high unemployment rates, a crippling union stranglehold and an unproductive, stagnating economy, the United Kingdom of the 1970s was a country in dire straits.

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Thatcher believed that pervasive unemployment and growing inflation were not just temporary threats, they were burying Britain's future. She believed the root causes were found not in the shifts of economic cycles, but in the failure of Britain's flawed economic model.

She guided Britain's economic base away from domestic monopolies and toward global capitalism. Because of her privatization and deregulation policies, the United Kingdom became a center for international finance and investment. In 1987, Thatcher was elected to a historic third term.

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Despite her successes politically, she was a polarizing presence and had relatively low approval ratings during her tenure. Many Britons detested her attempts to curb the unions, her cuts to social programs and education, and her introduction of the Community Charge, called the "poll tax." Her Cabinet did not share her views on the European Union. She resigned as prime minister after three terms in 1990, believing her party had betrayed her.

Still, there can be no debate of her enduring impact. Tony Blair's historic 1997 election and return of the Labor Party to power is often pointed to as a moment of renewed liberalism in Britain. In many ways, it was. But under the banner of a new Labor and Blair's embrace of a "third way," it is also evident that Thatcher had changed Britain's economic debate forever. She had moved the political discussion from one of statism versus capitalism to a basic acceptance of free market economics as a standard of British political consensus.

Opinion: Why Britain needs another Thatcher

Although many on the British left oppose what Thatcher did and what she stood for, there is a quiet, begrudging perhaps, but unmistakable admiration of her strong and unswerving leadership.

History will record Thatcher stood for what she believed, and that both Britain and the world are better for it.